


Twenty-Flower

by camakitsune



Category: Coco (2017), Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Crossover, Día de los Muertos | Day of the Dead, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camakitsune/pseuds/camakitsune
Summary: Imelda meets the stranger that's been menacing Santa Cecilia. Marluxia finds a world that has harnessed the power of memory.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Twenty-Flower

There was a strange visitor in Santa Cecilia.

It wasn’t just the old ladies thinking they saw nahuales or kids telling stories after they heard an animal cry at night. It was also everyone at Andres’ pottery saying they saw a figure around town covered head to toe in black. Xochitl said she caught it watching her in the field – she rushed off and didn’t go back since then and had no flowers to sell because of it.

But Imelda didn’t have time to worry about a stranger just standing and watching people. Día de Muertos was days away. She couldn’t get cempasúchil flowers in town, so she did the only thing that made sense: she grabbed a big basket and brought Coco toddling after her to the field herself.

Gentle fall calmed the heat and heavy rains of summer. The field was blanketed in burning-bright orange, swaying in waves of wind. The edge of that orange cover nearest Santa Cecilia was carved off, marking the extent of the town’s courage to brave an encounter with the mysterious stranger draped in darkness.

Imelda and Coco ventured well into the thick of the bright cempasúchiles. The young mother squatted down, retrieved a little knife from her apron, and began cutting flowers to fill her basket. Coco wandered nearby, too small to handle a knife, instead picking flowers by hand when she wasn’t distracted by a bug or lizard.

But just as Xochitl described, Imelda heard a sound like a storm wind behind her. She looked over her shoulder and there it stood – the shape of a tall man covered head to toe in black. He was between her and the way back into town.

He only stood there and stared. Imelda stood as well.

“Not going to scream?” he asked her.

Not if she could hold it in, but she wasn’t about to let him see how close she was. “Who are you?” she responded instead.

“I’m Nobody.”

“And why are you here, Señor Nobody? I’ve heard about you.”

“Have you now?”

“Are you a ghost? Or are you a devil?”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps I could be both. As for why I’m in this town, I should think it’s obvious.” He stepped forward.

Imelda squeezed the little knife in her hand, the only defense she had. “Stay back!” she barked when he approached too close for comfort, brandishing the little knife. “I mean it!”

He was still several paces away when he stopped, but it was close enough for Imelda to make out a pair of gently smiling lips. “I am here to observe, and to learn. The people here have been at work on rituals and preparations for something. I find these rituals quite interesting.”

“Cepaluliles!” Coco called, hurrying up with a fistful of the flowers she couldn’t quite pronounce.

“Coco!” Imelda flung her basket off her arm to reach for her and pull her close before she could run up to the stranger. “Stay close to Mami,” she muttered, kneeling to grip her daughter and keep her eyes on the stranger.

He came closer still, undaunted by the little knife she pointed his way, and bent to retrieve a cut flower from the thrown basket’s scattered contents. “These flowers.” As he began to twirl it delicately between his thumb and first finger, his mouth hung partly open like he saw the Holy Mother herself in it. Imelda watched him stand there in a daze. This was her chance.

She dropped the knife to spring up with Coco in both arms and run. The stranger didn’t lunge to stop her as she rushed past him, she didn’t even hear him running after her. After a few seconds, she could no longer resist looking behind her.

No one was there.

Imelda held Coco tighter as her daughter giggled, unaware of the danger. The rush of stormwind brought her sight forward again, where something like a great shadowy egg swirled to shape. The shadows fell away, and once again the stranger stood in her path. Imelda stopped. More shadows danced in his hand as he swung it out to his side. In a burst of pink flowers, a giant scythe appeared in his reaching hand.

“Why don’t we all settle down?” the stranger asked. “And here I was so pleased to find someone who wouldn’t run off.” As smoothly as if the scythe was part of his own body, he turned the blade and swung it back to rest over his shoulder. His other hand still held the cempasúchil. He brought it up to his chest, over his heart – if he had one – tapped the stem with his finger. “Tell me. Why do you seek this flower? If you can tell me about your people’s rituals, I’ll be right on my way. How does that sound for a deal?”

“I’m not making a deal with a devil.” She wished he had her knife at least. Now she could do nothing but wait for him to lose interest as she turned down his requests. And pray that scythe was just for show in the meantime.

Instead of becoming violent, he made a sound, like he wanted to laugh but didn’t know how. “Fair enough. Then what about helping a poor lost spirit?”

“And no one remembered you to put on their ofrenda so you can ask them?”

“The altars? No, I can’t imagine anyone is trying to keep my memory alive. I don’t suppose you and your daughter would be kind enough to remember me?”

“Remem-ber me,” Coco repeated, to the tune of _that awful man’s_ song.

“No, Coco,” Imelda scolded. “No singing.”

But she wasn’t listening, and she started to wiggle in Imelda’s arms. “Papá!” she called. “Where’s Papá?”

Imelda tried to split her attention between watching the stranger and unsuccessfully shushing Coco all while struggling to keep her hold on the child.

“Oh dear,” the stranger said. He didn’t sound the smallest bit troubled. “And it sounds like the poor girl’s father is merely a memory on your ofrenda as well? It must be difficult.”

Imelda hardened her stare. “That bum musician has no place on our ofrenda and neither do you, devil!”

He gave another almost-laugh. “In that case you’ll have to suffer me a little longer then. Just until I have the answers I seek.” He pointed the orange bloom of the cempasúchil at her and she feared what kind of curse he would put on her for her resistance. "You take care of those memories of yours. There’s a fierce light in you, and it casts a deep shadow. It would be a pity to see you lose both because of that shadow.”

His swirling darkness surged up around him, covered him completely with its rushing noise, fell away with no trace of the stranger in sight. Coco pushed at Imelda’s arms, still asking “Where’s Papá?” as her mother scanned the fields around them feverishly for another surprise glimpse of the stranger. But he was gone for sure this time, leaving behind only his strange advice and her daughter clinging to a line from a song Imelda forbade her to repeat.

* * *

Marluxia knew the heart was a powerful thing, but so many worlds failed to truly tap into that power without external help. But here, Marluxia witnessed something too valuable to pass into Xemnas’ untrustworthy hands.

When the rituals in Santa Cecilia reached their peak, Marluxia saw the hearts of the dead strolling through the streets. The living couldn’t see them and the dead couldn’t interact with the tangible world. But each knew the others were there, reveled in each other’s presence as if nothing had changed. Marluxia didn’t witness grief, or sadness, or even farewells during their Día de Muertos.

And beneath the ofrendas, the food, the decorations, memories fueled the engine of their celebrations. The living secured the hearts of the dead from being lost to the pull of darkness, tied with chains linked from their own memories and stories.

Marluxia idly twirled the cempasúchil between his thumb and forefinger. The flower was everywhere. He had kept this one he’d plucked from the woman in the field, hoping for some epiphany as to why they kept teasing at a sense of familiarity within him. But not even following the paths of scattered petals on the celebratory evening of Día de Muertos gave him the links to connect with that absent heart of his.

He followed the path to a cemetery, where the dead fittingly seemed to be pouring in. Even they puzzled at his presence, skeletal faces double-taking or outright staring as they passed him by. None hindered him from following the flower path to the final entry point for the deceased.

A bridge of cempasúchil petals. Bright enough to burn Marluxia’s eyes. He followed its upward curve into hazy blue space, and at its apex, found the Land of the Dead on the other side.

Light. Movement. Life as far as the eye could see. An entire world unto itself, both dense and vast, bridged to this one and built upon the memories of the living.

What could he have built if he was himself? What little world sat in the darkness collapsed and forgotten, no memories to chain it and nothing to chain it to, nothing but a vague longing when he picked up the cempasúchil and a ghost of a thought that he was missing his memories, his identity, his past, his connections, his little flower

“You’re blocking traffic, hombre.”

The skeleton in front of Marluxia took him out of his trance. “I am,” he answered. He twirled the cempasúchil between his thumb and forefinger. “How careless of me.” He continued crossing the bridge.

“Aren’t you going the wrong way?”

Marluxia pressed on without answering. He was far from done here.

He had to keep these connected worlds a secret until he was the one directing the movement of the Organization. Xemnas only knew how to tear things open to see what was inside. No doubt, the current leadership would waste this world to the indiscriminate spread and cull of Heartless. Until Marluxia had his way, he had to observe in secret just how much the denizens of this world could keep alive, and uncover alone just what they might be able to awaken.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated.


End file.
